"Are we just letting it go?" Huanmao asked Chu Lingwei in a low voice after feeling the Hundred Stone Beast depart.
"Forget it, finding people is more important."
Chu Lingwei was not a bloodthirsty person. The clue provided by the Hundred Stone Beast had helped her, and she did not want to repay kindness with enmity.
"There's no spiritual energy here at all. Why would Uncle Chu come here?" Huanmao stood in front of Chu Lingwei, looking at the large mountains below them. This place was like an independent entity, surrounded by other mountains.
It looked inconspicuous, yet it was different.
Because, among all the mountains, only this one had no spiritual energy. It was as if something was blocking all spiritual energy from entering.
"This place is very strange," Chu Lingwei said, her expression growing more serious as she entered the mountain. "My spiritual energy is being consumed twice as fast as outside."
What did this mean? If the spiritual energy continued to deplete at this rate, her combat power would significantly decrease.
"My barrier is the same," Huanmao frowned. The barrier he had set up was also the same. Although the effect was the same as before, it required twice the spiritual energy to maintain, which troubled him greatly.
"Disperse the barrier."
Most people who entered here were like them, and they did not need to waste spiritual energy continuously.
Huanmao nodded and dispersed the barrier. He looked at the surrounding scenery: towering trees reaching the clouds, overgrown with all sorts of weeds.
Without spiritual energy, it was impossible for spiritual herbs to grow here, but it allowed ordinary wild weeds to grow even better. All the trees and weeds here were much denser than outside.
Standing at a high point, neither of them could see any path traversable on foot.
"Why is there no spiritual energy here?" Huanmao began to wonder. He had never found any barriers or formations here.
"There must be a reason, we just haven't found it yet." Chu Lingwei took out her magic artifact and threw it into the air, hoping to find any trace of people here.
There was no response at all.
This indicated that within a hundred-mile radius from here, there were no signs of living people, and no living people had appeared within the last three days.
"There's no one here, should we continue searching?"
"We'll retrace the path my father took." Chu Lingwei looked at the marker on the map given to her by her master. They were now very close to their destination.
Chu Lingwei's eyes darkened. Why would her father enter this place? Had her mother truly appeared here?
Was her mother really from the Phoenix clan?
Thinking of the Phoenix clan, Chu Lingwei's heart tightened. After leaving this place, she had to enter the spatial realm again and ask Yu Qinghong if they knew anything about the Phoenix clan.
"There's nothing here, just barren mountains."
The territory of the barren mountains was small. They flew on a flying artifact for an hour, and soon they would fly out.
Without spiritual energy, cultivators who entered here would not come to this place.
"You said, if Father entered here, how would he have entered?" Chu Lingwei looked at the weeds below, thinking that if she walked down now, she would definitely be engulfed by them.
The weeds below were too tall, almost over two meters high.
"Of course, he would have used a flying artifact," Huanmao answered without hesitation. "Uncle Chu was looking for someone, and he must have been in a hurry. He would have wanted to get here as fast as possible."
Chu Lingwei's hand tightened. Perhaps her father's feelings in searching for someone were the same as hers, constantly searching, searching.
"Let's go, let's leave first." Chu Lingwei thought of the place her master had marked on the map, and perhaps she should go there to look.
Chu Lingwei waved her hand and piloted the flying artifact out of these barren mountains. Just as they were leaving, a loud noise suddenly came from behind them.
"What was that?" Huanmao reacted first and rushed towards the direction of the sound.
Chu Lingwei followed closely behind. Both of them looked at the place that had suddenly collapsed and fell silent.
"It's an underground river."
"But there's no spiritual energy."
"This underground river should be flowing around these barren mountains." Chu Lingwei looked at the deep river water below. From above, they could see the black river water flowing rapidly towards the foot of the mountain.
"Weiwei, should we go and take a look?"
Huanmao did not want Weiwei to go down. He always felt that there was something eerie about this place. "Uncle Chu must not have gone down there."
There must be something wrong here.
On one side was the place where her father disappeared, and on the other was the strange underground river beneath these barren mountains.
Chu Lingwei hesitated briefly. Then she stood up resolutely. "Let's go. We'll find my father first. After we find him, we'll come back here to investigate."
"Okay."
Huanmao was delighted and quickly left with Chu Lingwei.
As soon as they left the territory of the barren mountains, the collapsed area they had just stood on miraculously returned to its original state.
"Weiwei, did you feel it? It felt like a pair of eyes were watching us just now." After leaving the barren mountains, Huanmao couldn't help but shiver. He felt a pair of eyes coldly staring at him, a sensation that pierced directly into his soul.
"I felt it. It should be related to that underground river." Chu Lingwei nodded. After they left the barren mountains, this gaze made no attempt to conceal itself, as if it was venting its dissatisfaction. "It's angry that we didn't walk into the trap it set for us."
These barren mountains should not have been devoid of spiritual energy, but were simply masked by a strange spiritual beast.
"There really is a spiritual beast there," Huanmao scoffed. "It seems we can't just let any spiritual beast go from now on."
The Hundred Stone Beast they let go must have known that these barren mountains were problematic, yet it still led them here. Next time he encountered this Hundred Stone Beast, he would make it pay.
Chu Lingwei searched her mind, but could not find any spiritual stone that could block spiritual energy in the spiritual beast compendium. It seemed to be an undocumented spiritual beast. She must come back to investigate if she had the chance.
"We're here, it's this place."
Chu Lingwei confirmed repeatedly, finally certain that this was the location marked by her master.
"Here?" Huanmao looked at the lake before them, his expression turning serious.
"It's here, at least the spiritual letter my father wrote to me was sent from here," Chu Lingwei nodded. Her master would not lie to her.
Chu Lingwei took out her magic artifact and infused it with spiritual energy, asking it to help her search for her father's trace.
The magic artifact flew around them, circling dozens of times before landing in the center of the lake.
Looking at the artifact's movement, Chu Lingwei's heart grew cold. Her father must have encountered an opponent here and fallen into the center of the lake.
Did her father enter the lake out of desperation or voluntarily?
Chu Lingwei took out a water-repelling pearl from her storage bag. She glanced at the surface of the lake, and then, pulling Huanmao along, they jumped in.