"Who did this? How could they be so cruel?"
Shen Qing forced herself to hold back the intense discomfort welling up inside. She quickly popped a spiritual fruit candy into her mouth to barely mask the overpowering smell of blood.
Li Xian's face was grave. He turned to Shen Qing and said, "Let's go in and take a look."
"Okay."
The two stepped over the entrance that resembled a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, and slowly made their way into the secret realm.
The scene along the way was just as gruesome as that at the entrance, too cruel and unbearable to behold.
Shen Qing recalled the way she died miserably in her previous life, just as fragmented as this.
She murmured softly, "Could it be that all this was done by the Demon Race?"
Li Xian turned his head. Seeing Shen Qing's pale face and wobbly steps, he reached out and took her hand.
"There's no residual demonic energy here. We can't be sure for the time being. Just stay close to me."
The spiritual energy here was rich, and there was no residual demonic energy on the corpses of all the brutally killed spiritual beasts. They couldn't be sure who had done this, nor could they determine whether the secret realm was truly safe.
If the culprit hadn't left after massacring the spiritual beasts, they would be in danger while inside the secret realm.
Shen Qing's breathing quickened. She tried her best to stop herself from looking at the corpses of the spiritual beasts, but she just couldn't control herself.
At the same time, she called Ling Zhou in her mind, "Master, are you there?"
After entering the Sword Tomb, due to the restrictions, Ling Zhou disappeared again. Even after they left the Sword Tomb, Ling Zhou remained silent. Shen Qing didn't even have a chance to talk to him about the sword.
After calling several times in a row, Ling Zhou's familiar voice finally came from her mind.
"My goodness! Disciple, did you do all this?!"
Ling Zhou's voice was filled with fear and unease. He almost bit his tongue while speaking.
After Shen Qing entered the Sword Tomb, he was restricted by the prohibitions in the Sword Tomb and couldn't get out.
So, with nothing to do all day, he stayed in the small wooden house in the space and started studying the books he hadn't finished reading. He didn't even know when Shen Qing had left the Sword Tomb.
Finally hearing Shen Qing's call, when he opened his spiritual sense, he saw the scene of this purgatory-like place all around. How could he not be terrified...
Shen Qing had no strength to refute, "It wasn't me..."
"This is the Spiritual Spring Secret Realm. Just now at the entrance, we heard the female cultivators from Qingyin Valley briefly talk about the situation here. They also said that the source of the spiritual spring had been destroyed."
"What?!!!"
"The spiritual spring that had existed for tens of thousands of years was actually destroyed?!"
Ling Zhou's voice was so shrill that it cracked.
Like Shen Qing, he found it unbelievable. What kind of person could destroy the source of the spiritual spring and still have the heart to brutally massacre the spiritual beasts in the secret realm?
"Disciple, don't be in a hurry. Let your master spread his spiritual sense and investigate."
"Okay."
Shen Qing followed Li Xian closely. Being held by Li Xian's hand, she felt a bit more at ease.
The boots of Shen Qing and Li Xian stepped on the ground covered with the blood of the spiritual beasts and became sticky.
Those two pairs of snow-white boots were already stained bright red.
Shen Qing lowered her head, looking at herself stepping on the blood. Her heart was filled with great heaviness and sorrow.
"The blood of these spiritual beasts hasn't completely dried up yet, so the time when that person committed this heinous act in the secret realm should be no more than half a month ago, probably around the time we entered the Sword Tomb."
Shen Qing felt a bit remorseful. If she had known earlier, she would have come to the Spiritual Spring Secret Realm first. Maybe she could have stopped this massacre.
Li Xian sensed Shen Qing's thoughts and suddenly stopped walking.
Shen Qing only felt that her eyes were covered by Li Xian, and she couldn't see the way ahead.
"What's going on..."
Shen Qing didn't see that Li Xian's face turned deathly pale, and the color on his lips was quickly fading.
"What's wrong?"
"Shen Qing, prepare yourself mentally... Look ahead."
There was a tremor in Li Xian's voice, and his tone was filled with unease and heaviness that Shen Qing had never heard before.
Reminded by Li Xian, Shen Qing's heart tightened instinctively. Just as she was about to turn her head to look ahead, Ling Zhou's voice rang out in her mind again.
"Little disciple... That young man is right. You need to prepare yourself mentally before looking ahead..."
Even Ling Zhou said so. The scene ahead must be even more unbearable than that at the entrance.
Shen Qing took a deep breath. She couldn't even describe how she was feeling inside.
"Let go. I can handle it..."
Shen Qing said, answering both Li Xian and Ling Zhou.
Li Xian removed his hand, and Shen Qing regained her sight and saw the scene ahead clearly.
They had already reached the location of the spiritual spring. The warm spring water surrounding the spiritual spring had been dyed dark red.
The source of the spiritual spring had been destroyed, forming a deep pit.
Shen Qing's eyes widened, and her pupils constricted sharply.
At first, she didn't see the scene in the spring clearly and felt a bit confused as to why Li Xian and Ling Zhou were so shocked.
But after she saw it clearly, she could only cover her mouth tightly to suppress the scream that was about to come out.
"That... That is..."
"It's human skin..."
Shen Qing gasped for a few breaths and asked tremulously, but Li Xian confirmed her guess.
The source of the spiritual spring was first maliciously destroyed, and then, that person actually used human skin to block the spring.
There was still blood remaining on those human skins. The fresh blood had dyed the entire spring and the surrounding warm spring red.
"This was skinned alive... That's why the scene is like this..."
Li Xian let go of Shen Qing's hand and walked over alone. He stood on the only clean stone among the rubble, closed his eyes, and spread his spiritual sense.
A moment later, enduring the nausea and discomfort, he returned to Shen Qing's side. After carefully choosing his words, he said to Shen Qing, "The owners of these human skins are mortals, not cultivators from the cultivation world. There is no spiritual energy contained in their skin."
Shen Qing only felt her scalp go numb, and her head seemed to be about to explode.
The lingering smell of blood kept drilling into Shen Qing's nose. For a moment, she felt dizzy. The voices of Ling Zhou and Li Xian mixed together, and all she could feel was a ringing in her ears.
"Ugh!!"
Shen Qing couldn't hold it back any longer and ran to the side to retch.
In her previous life, before she closed her eyes, she watched helplessly as the Demon Race devoured her body. That feeling of fear and nausea had finally dissipated after her rebirth.
Now seeing this scene, that feeling surged up again.
At this moment, Shen Qing was absolutely certain that the person who committed this heinous act must be from the Demon Race.
A person immediately popped into her mind.
Lin Yibai!
In her previous life, after Lin Yibai successfully seized the luck of the male supporting characters, the cultivation world and the mortal world had become the granaries of the Demon Realm.
The massacred mortals and the brutally killed spiritual beasts were just like those in this secret realm.
Lin Yibai, she was definitely not dead!