Chapter 078

Chapter 78: Reunion in the Underground Cave

The moment Yun Xi was swept away, panic surged in her heart. Almost by instinct, she activated every defensive artifact she possessed. Even the divine flower ornament at her brow shimmered faintly. Gripping her spiritual sword tightly, she slashed at the snake’s tail that coiled around her body.

She held nothing back this time, unleashing all of her strength, and managed to crack the scales on the serpent’s tail.

A cold, emotionless voice echoed directly into Yun Xi’s mind: “Human cultivator, if you value your life, stop resisting. Otherwise, I won’t mind devouring you right now!”

Her next strike faltered at these chilling words, and in that fleeting hesitation, she was dragged swiftly underground.

Below was utter darkness. Expanding her divine sense, she discovered a three-headed serpent coiling tightly around her, diving deeper into the earth toward its lair.

After striking her head twelve painful times and scraping every bit of exposed skin against rough stone, Yun Xi’s robes were now covered in dust. Finally, she was thrown unceremoniously onto the cold cavern floor.

Rolling immediately into a defensive posture, Yun Xi cautiously scanned her surroundings and froze. She spotted several familiar figures—Qin Tong Shuang, Mu Ning Zhu, and Zhang Yan were among them. There were also four cultivators she didn’t recognize, each holding an egg tightly in their arms.

“Yun Xi!”

“Junior Sister Wei!” Qin Tong Shuang and Mu Ning Zhu called out simultaneously, both voices filled with surprise.

Before Yun Xi could reply, the serpent flicked its tail, tossing an egg directly into her arms. The icy voice spoke once more within her consciousness:

“Human cultivator, now that you’ve stumbled into my trap, obediently hatch this egg for me. If my offspring doesn’t emerge, none of you shall leave alive—you’ll all become my meal!”

A crushing pressure at the peak of second-order fell upon Yun Xi, forcing her to kneel. However, the flower ornament at her brow secretly shielded her from harm. But to avoid revealing her hidden power to her fellow disciples, she obediently sank to her knees.

The serpent fixed all three pairs of its cold eyes on her. Once satisfied she had no strength left to resist, it withdrew its oppressive aura, flicked its massive tail, and left the gloomy cavern.

Only when the exit had been sealed off did Yun Xi rise shakily from the ground. Holding the serpent egg close, she moved over and sat next to Qin Tong Shuang, asking:

“Junior Sister Qin, how did you all end up in the lair of this Three-Headed Serpent? And what is this business with hatching eggs?”

Qin Tong Shuang glanced at Yun Xi, who was just as battered as herself, and was about to reply when Mu Ning Zhu spoke first:

“Wei junior niece, why are you here as well? Were you sent to find us?”

“More or less,” Yun Xi answered. “When I heard Senior Sister Qin Tong Shuang had gone missing in the Treasure Blossom Range, I took the sect’s mission to search for you. But when I finally reached Treasure Blossom City, I found out that because several Qi Refining cultivators sent on the rescue mission had also disappeared, the mission difficulty had increased dramatically. It was then reassigned to Senior Uncle Sheng Yu Hong from the Inner Sect.

“I teamed up with Senior Brother Long Dao Yu to enter the Treasure Blossom Mountains, secretly following Senior Uncle Sheng’s group, hoping to find some clues. Eventually, we arrived at the place where you’d activated your emergency signal. Once Senior Uncle Sheng and his group had moved on, we went to check out the Fire Dragon Grass. But after picking only two stalks, I got dragged underground by this snake.

“But don’t worry. Senior Brother Long should have already activated our rescue signal, and Senior Uncle Sheng isn’t far away—he’ll see it for sure.”

Yun Xi finished her explanation in one breath, then turned her attention back to Qin Tong Shuang.

Qin Tong Shuang massaged her temples and sighed. “That entire patch of Fire Dragon Grass was actually planted by the Three-Headed Serpent as bait, specifically to lure cultivators.”

“It lures cultivators for what? To hatch eggs?” Yun Xi looked doubtfully at the egg in her arms.

“That’s right,” Mu Ning Zhu answered with certainty.

Yun Xi opened and closed her mouth twice before finally regaining her voice: “But do they only lay eggs without hatching them themselves? Forgive my ignorance, junior sister, but all the Demon Beast manuals I’ve seen clearly state that serpent-kind beasts hatch their own offspring. Since when did they start forcing cultivators to do their work?”

Mu Ning Zhu’s expression was complicated, while Qin Tong Shuang spoke with obvious irritation:

“Exactly! But of all the creatures, we had to encounter this bizarre serpent. It’s a peak second-order Three-Headed Serpent, equal to a human cultivator at the late Foundation Establishment stage. We simply have no means to escape.

“Its eggs won’t hatch, and it apparently received advice from some other beast that human spiritual energy could aid in the hatching. So, it planted Fire Dragon Grass as bait and started kidnapping cultivators.”

Hearing this, Yun Xi pieced together the situation. Mu Ning Zhu had led her team into the Treasure Blossom Range, spotted the enticingly aged Fire Dragon Grass, and cautiously decided to harvest it while the serpent was away hunting. Unfortunately, they still fell victim to an ambush and were captured.

They had thought their end was near, but unexpectedly, the serpent simply gave each cultivator an egg, demanding they hatch them within a set period. If the eggs didn’t hatch, they’d become food.

Qin Tong Shuang, usually so composed and dignified, had lost all her elegance by now. Her rapid explanation aligned perfectly with Yun Xi’s assumptions. Their only hope of survival was to hatch these eggs—or at least hold out until Sheng Yu Hong rescued them.

“Are these fellow disciples from Grand Righteous Sect as well?” Yun Xi asked curiously, glancing at the unfamiliar cultivators. Without the sect robes, she couldn’t tell their origins.

“These four are also our sect’s disciples,” Qin Tong Shuang confirmed. “Two of them were investigating our disappearance when the serpent captured them.”

Yun Xi stroked her chin thoughtfully. This serpent seemed unusually clever, employing tactics to capture weaker rescuers while avoiding confrontation with stronger teams. The serpent deliberately avoided Sheng Yu Hong’s Foundation Establishment group, knowing the risks of direct confrontation outweighed the benefits. It targeted Yun Xi and Long Dao Yu instead.

Having clarified their current predicament, Yun Xi asked the most crucial question:

“Senior Aunt Mu, you’ve all been trapped here for half a month already—has there been any progress with these eggs?”

An uncomfortable silence followed. Everyone shook their heads in resignation.

One senior brother burst out angrily, “We’ve drained so much spiritual energy into these blasted eggs, but they haven’t reacted at all!”

Yun Xi cautiously suggested, “Could the eggs be dea—”

Before she could finish the word “dead,” Qin Tong Shuang swiftly covered Yun Xi’s mouth.

“Quiet!” she whispered urgently. “Don’t say that word aloud, or that serpent will go berserk.”

Yun Xi blinked understandingly, prompting Qin Tong Shuang to finally release her hand.

Mu Ning Zhu sighed deeply. “We thought the same, but after probing with spiritual energy, we confirmed there’s still demon power active inside the eggs. They’re just refusing to hatch for some reason.”

Everyone looked utterly frustrated. Yun Xi held her egg thoughtfully, experimenting with her spiritual energy—only to feel it sink uselessly into the egg with no effect. She even placed her ear against it but heard nothing. Finally, she carefully sent her divine sense, which had secretly reached late Foundation Establishment, inside to examine it more thoroughly.

A few moments later, she raised her head with a troubled look and said grimly:

“These eggs… will never hatch, not in our lifetimes.”