We slowly made our way down, and the sound of loud breathing permeated the area. You could clearly hear the sound of claws being dragged across hard surfaces, while at the same time the occasional howl, of a beast and a man at the same time.
The sounds were not only fear-inducing, but they also made one's skin crawl the more you listened.
"This is really uncomfortable," Liang Yu said.
"Hang in there, I'll try and see if I can poison them," I spoke.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and were close to the wide hall where the half-humans usually were.
I sneaked a peek at the hall.
There were several dead half-humans in there. Their bodies were burnt to cinders and many were cut apart. However, the majority only had some wounds on them, and they all seemed heartily feasting on something.
From the piled-up half-humans, I could see an arm twitching, not of life, but because whoever was the owner of that arm was being torn apart and the arm was jerking as the body was being devoured.
My divine sense also spotted several pieces of paper on the ground.
I sent a sound transmission to Liang Yu, "I guess we found out what happened to the second snitch," I said.
"We're probably better off giving this up, we can't afford to fight against these… and I don't think they'll sit still while you poison them," she said.
"Oh, they won't," I said.
"But I have my ways, get ready," I said then I pulled several canisters from my holding bag then threw them into the room.
"Close your eyes and ears!" I said as I had my hands on my ears and closed my eyes shut.
Liang Yu immediately followed after me, closing her eyes and shutting her ears.
The canisters fell into the room and pulled every creature's attention to them as they slowly rolled on the ground before a deafening sound exploded in the middle of the room.
All the creatures screeched in pain, as the flash grenade I threw worked perfectly in such a darkened area to blind and destabilize the creatures.
The light would be annoying for the creatures that were used to dark areas, but anyone with the ability to use divine sense could easily forgo the use of their eyes, however, the flashbang had a mix of concussive explosives that would rattle anyone's brain out from shock.
I threw more canisters, poison ones, and Breath Sealing ones.
And once chaos ensued in the hall, I summoned X and ran forward.
X followed after me, and thankfully I decided to have him along because some of these creatures seemed to have managed to resist the explosives and were coming my way.
X struck down the closest of the half-humans with a wide palm, then pointed his arm to the second one shooting the Pile Bunker bullet at max output right into its chest.
The bullet penetrated through his chest and managed to catch another creature off guard pinning it to the ground before the bullet started spinning and tearing the creature apart.
I continued moving to dodge the flailing creatures that seemed to be regaining their bearings rather too fast for my taste.
I grabbed the box and another bell rang. This time it was tolling, for our lives.
I turned back to leave the room only to find all the creatures standing up, growling with bloodied jaws at me.
Shit, this was going to be a pain in the ass.
"Don't act like if I'm not existent," Spoke Liang Yu as she made a hand gesture, and summoned several clones of herself.
The clones were so detailed that one could hardly distinguish the real from the fake.
"This is how you use the golden scripture," she said and she made a hand motion where she summoned an ethereal sword from her palm, all the other clones did the same and then a dozen magic swords shot forward at blinding speed towards the creatures.
They turned towards the danger and blocked but it was almost impossible to stop Liang Yu's advance, as she did another motion and even more swords shot forward, and more.
It was like she was shooting off a Gatling gun worth of swords.
But I could clearly see that this move was taxing on her Qi reserves.
"I know I'm, good to look at, but you should probably hurry up!" she said, strain clear in her voice.
"X," I spoke and didn't need to add anything else, as X shot forward breaking the formation of the half-humans.
I followed after him as I threw several other canisters.
The creatures who were away from the canisters closed their eyes and ears immediately as if expecting it to blow once again. However, nothing of the sort happened, the canisters weren't explosive.
The canisters that rolled on the ground soon stopped, then they began spinning around themselves, releasing a jet of liquid all over the place.
This liquid didn't seem that harmful to the half-humans as they sniffed at it, and scrunched up their noses from the smell.
Just as I arrived to the end of the hall I snapped my fingers summoning a small Veridian Flame. I then threw it forward and it slowly hovered down before it reached the ground.
"Thanks!" I said to Liang Yu as all three of us went past the stairs. "Now let's hurry, it's gonna get hot in here," I said.
And just as I finished my words, the Viridian Heart flame surged into the liquid from the canisters and began spreading all over the hall and on the half-humans.
Loathsome, unholy screams echoed as the half-humans burnt alive.
While our group rushed up at the stairs until we reached the exit.
The half-humans hurried after us, burning and in incredible pain, raced and ran away from the fire all the way to the top of the stairs, only to be blocked by an invisible barrier.
The heat from the viridian flame began surging even higher inside the gaol, and I could do nothing but look away from the screaming pile of half-humans who did nothing wrong to us, but they died just so we don't die.
"What a fucked-up mess…" I mumbled.
"It was us or them, Shen Bao," she said.
I didn't want to tell her the truth, maybe she knew it and didn't want to say it. It wasn't us or them, we could have easily given up this test and left the area without needing to kill scores of these half-humans that seemed to be imprisoned here for no clear reason.
No one deserves to die like this.
What a sad and arrogant way of life.
I was disgusted with myself.
But I had to shake this feeling off, we still had much to do.
Looking ahead, on the other side of the bridge, a new group of cultivators seemed to have arrived.
At first, I was worried that it was the other half of the guards, but after a closer look, I realized that they were the prisoners that were with us.
A couple of them looked bloodied as if they were in a fight.
One of the prisoners went close to the bound guards and began pounding at him with vengeance.
"It seems that they have a story to tell," I said as I asked X to re-link the bridge again with the rope.
He shot another Pile Bunker bullet at the other bridge attached to a rope and we crossed it.
Once we arrived to the other side of the bridge, we were met with the other group of cultivators.
"You weren't caught After all," one of them said.
"Why would you say so?" I asked.
"One of the guards captured a couple of us," he said.
I looked at the bloodied cultivator who seemed to be releasing his pent-up stress against the guards.
"We're missing one prisoner," I said to the bloodied man.
"Yes, he was captured, it was two at first, but brother Nangong sacrificed himself to save me," he said.
"Hmm, anyway, let's leave this place," I said.
"How? We don't have enough Pieces of Information, we looked high and low and couldn't find a single one, we're already screwed, I might as well cripple these bastards so that none of us could ever move forward," the bloodied man said.
"So spiteful," I shook my head, "I already have ten tickets, let's just leave," I said and headed back into the main prison.
Once I was inside the prison again, I pulled the ten pieces of information from my holding bag, and they soon lit up.
The pieces of information then rushed forward and planted themselves against one of the walls, then soon a portal manifested itself.
"Let's go," I said to Liang Yu and grabbed her hand and the two of us walked inside the gate first.
We arrived to a new area and looking around, I saw several cultivators already standing by.
"OH! A group of Prisoners actually managed to get out!" one of the people around us said.
Looking around, everyone here didn't seem to have their shackles.
"What kind of guards did they have to even manage to win as prisoners, what a waste," spoke another.
And then more.
Several cultivators were scuffing at our victory and we didn't seem to understand the reason why.
Not long after however, the man in purple robes came to explain.
"It seems that we actually have an unprecedented in this race," he said, his tone being rather joyful. Not something I expected.