I asked you to go down the mountain and get married, not to shock the world!

Ji Zhou nodded slightly. His spiritual sense was more acute than Ye Chuhan's, and he had already sensed the hostile atmosphere hidden in the surrounding environment.

The spiritual power within him, refined by the Glazed Golden Flame Fruit, was exceptionally sensitive to yin and evil energy, and was now slightly agitated, as if warning him.

"Stay close to me," Ji Zhou whispered, slowing his pace and taking in his surroundings more carefully.

After traveling for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the road ahead became increasingly rugged and difficult to traverse, with strange rocks everywhere, and the complete path was almost invisible.

The malevolent aura in the air had also become much stronger, carrying a sense of erosion that made people uneasy.

"Tsk, this awful place, it's really uncomfortable to stay here for too long." Ye Chuhan couldn't help but complain, while circulating his spiritual power to resist the erosion of the yin energy.

Suddenly, Ji Zhou stopped and raised his hand to signal Ye Chuhan to stop.

His sharp gaze swept to the left front of him towards a dense thicket of bushes that reeked of decay.

"There's movement." Ji Zhou's voice was extremely low.

Ye Chuhan immediately held her breath and followed Ji Zhou's gaze.

The bushes swayed slightly, and then several blurry black figures emerged silently like ghosts.

They were three monstrous beasts that resembled jackals but were larger, covered in dark purple scales, and whose eyes gleamed with an eerie green light.

They bared their pale, sharp teeth, emitting low, whimpering sounds from their throats, and their foul-smelling saliva dripped onto the ground, corroding the withered leaves.

"It's a Bone-Eating Jackal!" Ye Chuhan's expression changed slightly. "A single one of these creatures is only at the late Foundation Establishment stage, but they usually live in groups, and their teeth and saliva are highly poisonous and corrosive, making them extremely difficult to deal with. It seems we've been targeted."

The three bone-eating jackals clearly saw Jizhou and Ye Chuhan as prey, and slowly surrounded them in a fan shape, their eerie green eyes filled with bloodlust.

"Looks like we don't need to wait for the Burial Abyss; we can warm up here first." Ji Zhou's eyes were cold. He had no good feelings towards this kind of demonic beast that lurked near the evil cultivators' lair and aided and abetted evil.

"I'll handle the two on the left, and you take the one on the right. Make it quick and don't cause too much of a commotion," Ji Zhou quickly assigned the targets.

“No problem!” Ye Chuhan replied, a short blade gleaming with a blue light already in his hand.

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, Jizhou moved.

His figure moved like lightning. He did not use any powerful wind-based spells, but instead concentrated the power of wind spirits in his feet and fingertips, increasing his speed dramatically. He appeared in front of the two bone-eating jackals on the left as if he had teleported.

The two bone-eating jackals were clearly taken aback by their prey's speed and paused for a moment.

In that instant, Ji Zhou pointed his fingers like a sword, his fingertips swirling with highly compressed, almost invisible wind blades, and pointed with unparalleled precision at the brow of one of the Bone-Eating Jackals!

"Pfft!"

With a soft sound, the Bone-Eating Jackal didn't even have time to scream before its hard skull was pierced by the sharp wind blades. Its eerie green eyes dimmed instantly, and its massive body crashed to the ground.

The other Bone-Eating Jackal reacted, roared, opened its blood-red maw, and pounced on Jizhou, bringing with it a foul stench and corrosive saliva.

Jizhou slightly shifted his body to avoid the attack, while his right hand shot out like an iron clamp, accurately grabbing the sharp claws that the Bone-Eating Jackal was swinging, and twisting them sharply!

"Crack!" A sickening sound of bone breaking rang out.

At the same time, he clenched his left fist, which contained immense power and was accompanied by condensed wind pressure, and slammed it heavily into the side of the Bone-Eating Jackal!

"Oh!"

The Bone-Eating Jackal was struck as if by a high-speed boulder; its entire body twisted and deformed, and it flew backward with a scream, crashing through several dead trees before collapsing to the ground, lifeless.

On the other side, Ye Chuhan's battle was also nearing its end.

His movements were equally agile. When faced with the attack of the bone-eating jackal, he did not confront it head-on, but instead used the speed that Qingfeng Yumen excelled at to maneuver around it.

Seizing an opening, the cyan short blade in his hand, like a venomous snake emerging from its hole, flashed with a sharp, cold light and precisely sliced ​​across the throat of the Bone-Eating Jackal.

The Bone-Eating Jackal froze, blood gushing from its throat, and after a few struggles, it collapsed and died.

The battle lasted only a few breaths from start to finish.

The two cleanly and efficiently dealt with the three Bone-Eating Jackals, which would have given ordinary early-stage Core Formation cultivators a headache!

Ye Chuhan flicked the blood off the short blade, looked at Ji Zhou, and exclaimed in amazement, "You were quick and efficient!"

Ji Zhou frowned slightly as he looked at the monster corpses on the ground. "These monsters are entrenched here, which is inextricably linked to that evil cultivator. It seems we're not far from their lair. Let's clean up the mess and continue onward."

Ye Chuhan nodded, flicked out a fire talisman, and landed precisely on the corpse of the Bone-Eating Jackal.

The fire talisman instantly ignited into a burst of flames, extremely hot yet condensed and undissipated, quickly burning the corpse and bloodstains to ashes, leaving only a few scorch marks, making it almost impossible to see any trace of the battle.

"Let's go," Jizhou said in a low voice, his gaze once again turning towards the depths of the mountains.

The two continued on, becoming increasingly cautious.

As they ventured deeper, the surrounding environment became increasingly treacherous. The malevolent energy permeating the air almost solidified, transforming into a faint black mist that swirled through the forest, obstructing visibility and constantly eroding their protective spiritual power.

If the two had not had profound foundations and pure spiritual power, they probably would have already felt unwell.

After traveling a while longer, Jizhou stopped again, squatted down, and carefully examined the ground.

On a patch of slightly damp soil, he found a blurry footprint that was definitely not of an animal. The edges of the footprint still retained a faint trace of the eerie, fiery energy similar to that he had sensed in the village.

“The signs of human activity are very recent.” Ji Zhou stood up and looked at Ye Chuhan. “The direction is right, and we have likely already entered their warning range.”

Ye Chuhan's expression also turned serious. He nodded and said no more, only gripping the short blade in his hand even tighter.

Following the faint traces, the two men, using the cover of strange rocks and dead trees, crept forward like ghosts.

About an incense stick's time later, the faint sound of flowing water and a subtle, teeth-grinding metallic scraping sound could be heard from ahead.

They exchanged a glance, tacitly concealing their presence, and silently climbed onto a huge black rock, crouching low to look down.

Below is a relatively open valley, through which a muddy stream flows.

On the other side of the stream, at the foot of the mountain wall, there is a cave entrance that is half-hidden by vines and rocks!

A dim light shone faintly from the cave entrance, and the eerie metallic scraping sound came from inside the cave.

Even more striking was the sight of two cultivators, dressed in tattered black robes, with pale faces and an eerie bluish-black aura, patrolling near the cave entrance.

Their eyes were numb, and they exuded a sinister aura similar to that of the Bone-Eating Jackal, but they were much stronger, with a cultivation level of about the late Foundation Establishment stage!

"Looks like we've found the right place," Ye Chuhan said in a very low voice. "The two gatekeepers aren't very powerful, but they look a bit strange, not like normal cultivators."